


Dreams of the Knight

by allieblue



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jamie is a dumb soft boi, Season 8 but pre-Battle of Winterfell, Thinkin bout his knight, This is just a stream of consciousness if I am honest, canon compliant I guess, reflections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 13:30:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19769197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allieblue/pseuds/allieblue
Summary: Jamie had absolutely no idea when he’d gone from ‘vaguely respecting’ Brienne to ‘being awkwardly in love with (to the point he couldn’t speak normal sentences)’ Brienne.





	Dreams of the Knight

**Author's Note:**

> Jamie is kind of a doofus.
> 
> Just sayin'.

Jamie had absolutely no idea when he’d gone from ‘vaguely respecting’ Brienne to ‘being awkwardly in love with (to the point he couldn’t speak normal sentences)’ Brienne. He suspected there had been some moment, after she’d left in the armour he’d given her with a sword he’d never be worthy of where he had somehow fallen. It was foolish really, to fall in love with someone when they weren’t even there, like falling in love with a memory. But he was sure when she’d rode off with Pod it had all been respect and a desire for his oath to Lady Stark to be fulfilled rather than some kind of delicate unspoken love confession, yes, he was sure. 

It had to have been some point, in the nights where he laid awake staring at the ceiling, or the stump where he had once had a hand and thinking of how he had ended up like this. A cripple and a disappointment to his father, no actual use to anyone as a fighter and he’d never been much of an advisor, but he felt just a little closer to the man he’d once been. Well, boy really, the one who’d been willing to ruin his reputation to save a city, who had still had ideas of true knights and heroes dancing in his mind. It was because of Brienne, he’d lost a hand because of her and yet felt no resentment, because, and there was no way he was admitting this to her, he’d seen a true knight again in her. He’d begun to think that once Barristan Selmy was gone that it was the end of heroic knights, that the world was so dark that they just couldn’t exist anymore.

So it was probably somewhere in the depths of his musings on the nature of heroism and knights and his own sorry state that he’d fallen in love with the Maid of Tarth. Seeing her again, be it as he laid siege to the family of her sworn lady or alongside his sister, had only confirmed it. And seeing Brienne whilst by Cersei’s side had turned his gut to pitch, thinking of the broken tangled narcissistic love he’d had for his sister to how he felt about Brienne. He found himself looking at the world how she did, realised that in his mind he cringed whenever he behaved in a way he knew she’d consider ‘unbecoming of a knight’ and most nights now he dreamed of her.

They weren’t dreams of torrid passion or impassioned declarations of love, no somehow dreams of the two of them together were far more intimate than that. All heroics and fighting side by side and an all-enveloping warmth of spending time with the one you love, and knowing they love you back. That was of course, only in his dreams, he really couldn’t tell what Brienne thought of him. Sometimes when he was half awake he imagined the look in her eyes mirrored his own, that she felt how he did but couldn’t express it. When he was more in his right mind he was sure that he was being incredibly stupid, because she was an actual true to the bone hero and he was Jamie Lannister, selfish and arrogant and empty. What was there he could possibly offer her?

So he wasn’t going to Winterfell as some kind of romantic gambit, it wasn’t some calculated move to make the woman he loved think he was a good man it was simply the right thing to do, the right place to be. Defending the kingdom it was his duty to protect as knight, making his amends to the Stark family as much as he ever could and defending anyone who couldn’t raise a sword themselves. He wasn’t seeking redemption, that was a selfish path, an arrogant path thinking that somehow there was some amount of good he could do that would wash away the bad. Did it even count as redemption if you only acted to redeem yourself, like it was some kind of end goal you could reach? 

No, all he wanted, and it was a small wish, was to see Brienne again, fight alongside her and if necessary, die to protect her. He wanted to talk to her again, to remember that heroes were real and that someone like her whose soul the world had tried so desperately to crush was better than them all.


End file.
